Unfortunately, no one can be told who J. K. Rowling is. You have
to see her for yourself.

Science disclaimers: Luosha points out that the theory of
empathy in Ch. 27 (you use your own brain to simulate others) isn't
quite a known scientific fact. The evidence so far points in that
direction, but we haven't analyzed the brain circuitry and proven
it. Similarly, timeless formulations of quantum mechanics (alluded
to in Ch. 28) are so elegant that I'd be shocked to find the final
theory had time in it, but they're not established yet either.

There'd been a sinking feeling in Hermione's stomach lately,
every time she heard the other students talking about her and
Harry. She'd been in a shower stall this morning when she'd
overheard a conversation between Morag and Padma that had been the
last straw piled on top of quite a lot of other straws.

She was starting to think that getting involved in a rivalry
with Harry Potter had been a terrible mistake.

If she'd just stayed away from Harry Potter, she could
have been Hermione Granger, the brightest academic star of
Hogwarts, who was earning more points for Ravenclaw than anyone.
She wouldn't have been as famous as the Boy-Who-Lived, but
she would have been famous for herself.

Instead the Boy-Who-Lived had an academic rival, and her name
happened to be Hermione Granger.

And worse, she had gone on a date with him.

The idea of getting into a Romance with Harry had seemed like an
appealing idea at first. She'd read books like that, and if there
was anyone in Hogwarts who was a candidate for the heroine's love
interest it was obviously Harry Potter. Bright, funny, famous,
sometimes scary...

So she'd forced Harry into going on a date with her.

And now she was his love interest.

Or worse, one of the options on his dinner menu.

She'd been in a shower stall that morning and just about to turn
on the water, when she'd heard giggles coming from outside. And
she'd heard Morag talking about how that Muggleborn girl probably
wouldn't fight hard enough to win against Ginevra Weasley, and
Padma speculating that Harry Potter might decide he wanted
both.

It was like they didn't understand that GIRLS had options on
their dinner menu and BOYS fought over them.

But that wasn't even the part that hurt, really. It was that
when she scored 98 on one of Professor McGonagall's tests, the news
wasn't that Hermione Granger had scored the highest in the class,
the news was that Harry Potter's rival had scored seven more points
than him.

If you got too close to the Boy-Who-Lived, you became part of
his story.

You didn't get your own.

And the thought had come to Hermione that she should just walk
away, but that would've been too sad.

But she did want to get back what she'd accidentally
given away by letting herself become known as Harry's rival. She
wanted to be a separate person again instead of Harry Potter's
third leg, was that too much to ask?

It was a hard trap to climb out of once you fell in. No matter
how high you scored in class, even if you did something that
deserved a special dinnertime announcement, it just meant you were
rivaling Harry Potter again.

But she thought she'd come up with a way.

Something to do that wouldn't be seen as pushing up on
the opposite end of Harry Potter's seesaw.

It would be hard.

It would go against her nature.

She would have to fight someone very evil.

And she would need to ask someone even more evil for
help.

Hermione raised her hand to knock upon that terrible door.

She hesitated.

Hermione realized she was being silly, and raised her
hand a bit higher.

She tried to knock again.

Her hand quite failed to touch the door.

And then the door swung open anyway.

"Dear me," said the spider, sitting in its web. "Was it really
that hard to lose a single Quirrell point, Miss Granger?"

Hermione stood there with her hand raised, her cheeks growing
pink. It had been.

"Well, Miss Granger, I shall be merciful," said the evil
Professor Quirrell. "Consider it already lost. There, I have taken
a hard choice from you. Are you not grateful?"

"Professor Quirrell," Hermione managed to say in a voice that
squeaked a little. "I have a lot of Quirrell points, don't I?"

"You do indeed," said Professor Quirrell. "Though one less than
you had before. Terrible, isn't it? Just think, if I don't like
your reason for coming here, you could lose another fifty. Maybe
I'd take them away one... by one... by one..."

"Miss Granger," Professor Quirrell said gravely, "it can be
dangerous to give people compliments like that when they have not
been truly earned. The recipient might feel bashful and undeserving
and want to do something worthy of your praise. Now what was it you
wanted to talk to me about, Miss Granger?"

It was after lunch on Thursday afternoon, and Hermione and Harry
were ensconced in a little library nook, with a Quietus
field up so they could talk. Harry was lying stomach-down on the
ground with his elbows resting on the floor and his head in his
hands and his feet kicking up casually behind him. Hermione was
occupying a stuffed chair much too large for her, like she was the
Hermione center of a candy shell.

Harry had suggested that they could, as a first pass, read just
the titles of all the books in the library, and then
Hermione could read all the tables of contents.

Hermione had thought this was a brilliant idea. She'd never done
that with a library before.

Unfortunately there was a slight flaw in this plan.

Namely, they were both Ravenclaws.

Hermione was reading a book called Magical
Mnemonics.

Harry was reading a book called The Skeptical
Wizard.

Each had thought it was just one special exception they would
make only this one time, and neither had yet realized it was
impossible for either of them to ever finish reading all the book
titles no matter how hard they tried.

The quiet of their little nook was broken by two words.

"Oh, no," Harry suddenly said out loud, sounding like
the words had been torn out of him.

There was a bit more quiet.

"He didn't," Harry said, in the same voice.

Then she heard Harry start giggling helplessly.

Hermione looked up from her book.

"All right," she said, "what is it?"

"I just found out why you never ask the Weasleys about the
family rat," Harry said. "It's really awful and I
shouldn't be laughing and I'm a terrible person."

"Yes," Hermione said primly, "you are. Tell me too."

"Okay, first the background. There's a whole chapter in this
book about Sirius Black conspiracy theories. You remember who that
is, right?"

"Of course," said Hermione. Sirius Black was a traitor, a friend
of James Potter who had let Voldemort into the protected home of
the Potters.

"So it turns out there were a number of, shall we say,
irregularities, associated with Black going to Azkaban. He
didn't get a trial, and the Junior Minister in charge when the
Aurors arrested Black was none other than Cornelius Fudge, who
became our current Minister of Magic."

That sounded a little suspicious to Hermione too, and she said
as much.

Harry made a shrugging motion with his shoulders, as he lay on
the floor looking at his book. "Suspicious things happen all the
time, and if you're a conspiracy theorist you can always find
something."

"But no trial? " said Hermione.

"It was right after the Dark Lord's defeat," Harry said, his
voice serious as he said it. "Things were incredibly chaotic, and
when the Aurors tracked down Black he was standing there laughing
in a street ankle-deep in blood, with twenty eyewitnesses to
recount how he'd killed a friend of my father's named Peter
Pettigrew plus twelve bystanders. I'm not saying I approve of Black
not getting a trial. But these are wizards we're talking about
here, so it's not really any more suspicious than, I don't know,
the sort of thing people point to when they want to argue over who
shot John F. Kennedy. So anyway, Sirius Black is the wizarding Lee
Harvey Oswald. There's all sorts of conspiracy theories about who
really betrayed my parents instead of him, and one of the
favorites is Peter Pettigrew, and this is where it starts getting
complicated."

Hermione listened, fascinated. "But how do you go from there to
the Weasleys' pet rat -"

"Hold on," said Harry, "I'm getting there. Now, after
Pettigrew's death it came out that he'd been a spy for the Light -
not a double agent, just someone who snuck around and found things
out. He'd been good at that since he was a teenager, even in
Hogwarts he had a reputation for finding out all sorts of secrets.
So the conspiracy theory is that Pettigrew became an unregistered
Animagus while he was still in Hogwarts, an Animagus of something
small that could scurry around and listen to conversations. The
main problem being that successful Animagi are rare and doing it as
a teenager would be really unlikely, so of course the conspiracy
theory says that my father and Black were unregistered Animagi too.
And in that conspiracy theory, Pettigrew himself killed the twelve
bystanders, turned into his small Animagus form, and ran. So
Michael Shermer says there are four additional problems with this.
One, Black was the only one besides my parents who knew how to get
through the wards around their house." (Harry's voice was a little
hard as he said that.) "Two, Black was a more likely suspect to
start with than Pettigrew, there's a rumor Black deliberately tried
to get a student killed during his time at Hogwarts, and he was
from this really nasty pureblood family, Bellatrix Black was
literally his cousin. Three, Black was twenty times the fighting
wizard that Pettigrew was, even if he wasn't as smart. The duel
between them would have been like Professor Quirrell versus
Professor Sprout. Pettigrew probably didn't even get a chance to
draw his wand, let alone fake all the evidence the conspiracy
theory requires. And four, Black was standing in the street
laughing."

"But the rat -" said Hermione.

"Right," Harry said. "Well, to make a long story short, Bill
Weasley decided that his little brother Percy's pet rat was
Pettigrew's Animagus form -"

Hermione's jaw dropped.

"Yes," Harry said, "you wouldn't exactly expect Evil Pettigrew
to be living a sad and furtive life as the pet rat of an enemy
wizarding family, he'd either be with the Malfoys or, more likely,
off in the Carribean after a bit of plastic surgery. Anyway, Bill
knocks out his little brother Percy, stuns and grabs the rat, sends
out all these emergency owl messages -"

"Oh, no! " Hermione said, the words torn out of
her.

"- and somehow manages to gather Dumbledore, the Minister of
Magic, and the Head Auror -"

"He didn't! " said Hermione.

"And of course when they get there they think he's crazy, but
they use Veritas Oculum on the rat anyway, just to be
sure, and what do they discover?"

She would've died. "A rat."

"You win a cookie! So they dragged poor Bill Weasley off to St.
Mungo's and it turned out to be a pretty standard schizophrenic
break, it just happens to some people, especially young men around
what we'd consider college age. Guy was convinced he was
ninety-seven years old and had died and gone back in time to his
younger self via train station. And he responded perfectly well to
antipsychotics and is back to normal and everything's fine now,
except people don't talk as much anymore about Sirius Black
conspiracy theories, and you don't ever ask the Weasleys about the
family rat."

Hermione was giggling helplessly. It was really awful and she
shouldn't be laughing and she was a terrible person.

"The thing I don't understand," Harry said, after their
giggles had died down, "is why Black would hunt down
Pettigrew instead of running as fast as he could. He had to know
the Aurors would be after him. I wonder if they got the reason out
of Black before they took him to Azkaban? See, this is why people
who are absolutely positively guilty still go through the legal
system and get trials."

Hermione had to agree with that.

Soon Harry was done with his book while Hermione was only
halfway through hers - hers was a much more difficult book than
Harry's, but she still felt embarrassed about that. And then she
had to put Magical Mnemonics back on the shelf and drag
herself away, because it was time for her to face the most dreaded
class in Hogwarts, BROOMSTICK RIDING.

Harry tagged along as she walked there, even though his own
class wasn't until an hour and a half later, like a fighter jet
escorting a sad little propeller plane on its way to its own
funeral.

The boy wished her goodbye in a quiet, sympathetic voice, and
she walked onto the grassy fields of Doom.

And there was much shrieking and almost falling and horrible
brushes with death and the ground in completely the wrong
place and the sun getting in her eyes and Morag buzzing her
and Mandy thinking she was being subtle about always being
near enough to catch her if she fell and she knew the
other students were laughing at both of them but she never said
anything to Mandy because she didn't actually want to die.

After ten million years the class ended, and she was back on the
ground where she belonged until next Thursday. Sometimes she had
nightmares about it always being Thursday.

Why everyone had to learn this, when they were just
going to Apparate or Floo or portkey everywhere once they grew up,
was a complete and utter mystery to Hermione. Nobody actually
needed to ride broomsticks as an adult, it was like being forced to
play dodgeball in P.E.

At least Harry had the decency to be ashamed of being good at
it.

It was a couple of hours later, and she was in a Hufflepuff
study hall with Hannah, Susan, Leanne, and Megan. Professor
Flitwick, surprisingly diffident for a teacher, had asked if she
might possibly maybe help those four with their Charms homework for
a while, even though they weren't Ravenclaws, and Hermione had felt
so proud she'd almost burst.

Hermione took a piece of parchment, spilled a little bit of ink
on it, tore it into four pieces, crumpled them, and tossed the
pieces on the table.

She could have gotten it just from crumpling it, but
doing all that made it more like garbage, and that helped when
someone was first practicing the Disposal Charm.

Hermione sharpened her ears and eyes, and said, "Okay, try
it."

"Everto."

"Everto."

"Everto."

"Everto."

Hermione didn't think she'd quite caught all the problems. "Can
you all try it again?"

An hour later Hermione had concluded that (1), Leanne and Megan
were sort of sloppy, but if you asked them to keep practicing
something, they would, (2) Hannah and Susan were focused and driven
to the point where you had to keep telling them to slow
down and relax and think about things
instead of trying so hard - it was odd to think that those
two would soon be hers - and (3) she liked helping
Hufflepuffs, the whole study hall had a very cheerful
atmosphere.

When she left for dinner, she found the Boy-Who-Lived reading a
book while he waited to escort her. It made her feel flattered, and
also a little worried because Harry didn't seem to really talk to
anyone besides her.

"Did you know there's a girl in Hufflepuff who's a
Metamorphmagus?" said Hermione as they headed toward the Great
Hall. "She makes her hair really red, like stopsign red not Weasley
red, and when she spilled hot tea on herself she turned into a
black-haired boy until she got it under control again."

"Really? Cool," said Harry, sounding a bit distracted. "Um,
Hermione, just to check, you know tomorrow is the last day to sign
up for Professor Quirrell's armies, right?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "The armies of the evil Professor
Quirrell." Her voice was a little angry, though Harry didn't know
why, of course.

"Hermione," Harry said, his voice exasperated, "he's not evil.
He's a little bit Dark and a whole lot Slytherin. It's not the same
as being evil."

Harry Potter had too many words for things, that was his
problem. He would have been better off if he'd just divided the
universe into Good and Bad. "Professor Quirrell called me up in
front of the whole class and told me to shoot
someone! "

"He was right," Harry said, his face sober. "I'm sorry,
Hermione, but he was. You should have shot me, I wouldn't
have minded. You can't learn Battle Magic if you can't practice
against real opponents using real spells. And now you're doing okay
in sparring, aren't you?"

Hermione was only twelve, and so she knew, but she couldn't put
it into words, she couldn't find the thing to say that would
convince Harry.

Professor Quirrell had taken a young girl and called up that
girl in front of everyone, and ordered her to open fire without
provocation on a classmate.

It didn't matter if Professor Quirrell was right about
her needing to learn it.

Professor McGonagall wouldn't ever have done that.

Professor Flitwick wouldn't ever have done that.

Maybe not even Professor Snape would have done that.

Professor Quirrell was EVIL.

But she couldn't find the words, and she knew that Harry would
never believe her.

"Hermione, I've talked to older students," Harry said.
"Professor Quirrell could be the only competent Defense
Professor we get in all seven years at Hogwarts. Anything else we
can learn later. If we want to study Defense, we have to do it
this year. The students who sign up for the
extracurricular stuff are going to be learning huge amounts, way
beyond what the Ministry thinks first-years are supposed to study -
did you know we're going to be learning the Patronus Charm? In
January? "

"The Patronus Charm? " Hermione said, her voice going
up in surprise.

Her books said that was one of the brightest magics known, a
weapon against the Darkest creatures, cast with pure positive
emotions. It wasn't something she'd expect the evil Professor
Quirrell to teach - or arrange to be taught, since Hermione
couldn't imagine he could do the spell himself.

"Yes," Harry said. "Students don't usually learn the Patronus
Charm until their fifth years or even later! But Professor Quirrell
says the Ministry schedules were made up by talking Flobberworms,
and the ability to cast the Patronus Charm depends on emotions more
than magical strength. Professor Quirrell says that he thinks most
students do way less than they can, and this year he's
going to prove it."

There was the usual tone of awed worship that Harry's voice had
when he talked about Professor Quirrell, and Hermione gritted her
teeth and kept walking.

"I already signed up, actually," Hermione said, her voice a
little quiet. "I did it this morning. For everything, just like you
said."

In for a penny, in for a pound was the usual
expression.

Besides, she didn't want to lose, and if she wanted to
win she had to learn.

"I'm not joining your army." Hermione's voice was
sharp. She knew it was a reasonable assumption but it
still annoyed her.

Harry blinked. "Not Draco Malfoy's, surely. So you want to be in
the third army? Even though we don't know who the general
is yet?" Harry sounded surprised and a little wounded, and
she couldn't blame him, though of course she did blame him, since
in fact it was all his fault. "But why not mine?"

"Think about it," Hermione snapped, "and maybe you'll work it
out!"

And she sped up her stride and left Harry gaping behind her.

"Professor Quirrell," Draco said in his most formal voice, "I
must protest your appointment of Hermione Granger as the third
general."

"Oh?" said Professor Quirrell, leaning back in his chair in a
casual and relaxed manner. "Protest away, Mr. Malfoy."

"Granger is unfit for the position," said Draco.

Professor Quirrell tapped a finger on his cheek thoughtfully.
"Why yes, yes she is. Do you have any further protests?"

"Professor Quirrell," said Harry Potter beside him, "with all
due respect to Miss Granger's many outstanding academic talents and
the Quirrell points she has justly earned in your classes, her
personality is not suited to military command."

Draco had been relieved when Harry had agreed to accompany him
to Professor Quirrell's office. It wasn't just that Harry
was a gigantic blatant teacher's pet where Professor Quirrell was
concerned. Draco had also started to worry that Harry actually
was friends with Granger, it had been a while now and he
still hadn't made his move... but this was more like
it.

"I agree with Mr. Potter," said Draco. "Appointing her as a
general turns it into a farce."

"Harshly put," said Harry, "but I cannot bring myself to
disagree with Mr. Malfoy. To be blunt, Professor Quirrell, Hermione
Granger has around as much intent to kill as a bowl of wet
grapes."

"That," said Professor Quirrell mildly, "is not a thing I would
fail to notice myself. You are telling me nothing I do not already
know."

It was Draco's turn to say something, but the conversation had
suddenly hiccupped. That answer had not been in the
possibilities he and Harry had brainstormed before coming here.
What did you say after the teacher said that he knew
everything you knew and he was still going to commit an obvious
mistake?

The silence stretched.

"Is this some sort of plot?" Harry said slowly.

"Must everything I do be some sort of plot?" said Professor
Quirrell. "Can't I ever create chaos just for the sake of
chaos?"

Anthony Goldstein and Ernie Macmillan, came the
thought, before Draco's common sense kicked in and ruled out
mudbloods and Hufflepuffs no matter how aggressively they dueled.
So instead Draco just said, "What's wrong with Zabini?"

"I see..." Harry said slowly.

"I don't," said Draco. "Why not Zabini?"

Professor Quirrell looked at Draco. "Because, Mr. Malfoy, no
matter how hard he tries, he'll never be able to keep up with you
or Mr. Potter."

The shock of it staggered Draco. "You can't believe
Granger is going to -"

"He's gambling on her," Harry said quietly. "It's not
guaranteed. The odds aren't even good. She'll probably never give
us a good fight, and even if she does, it may take her months to
learn. But she's the only one in our year with any chance at all of
growing to beat us."

Draco's hands twitched but didn't clench into fists. Showing up
as your supporter and then backing out was a classic undermining
tactic, so Harry Potter was in it with Granger and
that implied -

"But Professor," Harry went on smoothly, "I'm worried Hermione
will be miserable as the general of an army. I'm speaking
as her friend now, Professor Quirrell. The competition might be
good for Draco and me, but what you're asking her to do isn't good
for her! "

Never mind.

"Your friendship for Hermione Granger does you credit,"
Professor Quirrell said dryly. "Especially as you are able to be
friends with Draco Malfoy at the same time. Quite a feat,
that."

"And I doubt Miss Granger would appreciate your friendly
concern," said Professor Quirrell. "She asked me for the position,
Mr. Potter, I did not ask her."

Harry was quiet at this for a moment. Then he flashed Draco a
quick look that mixed apology and warning, saying at the same time,
Sorry, I did my best and We'd better not press it any
further.

"As for her being miserable," Professor Quirrell went on, a
slight smile now playing about his lips, "I suspect that she will
have a much easier time with the rigors of her position than either
of you suspect, and that she will put up a good fight much sooner
than you think."

Harry and Draco both gasped in horror.

"You're not going to advise her, are you?" said Draco,
utterly aghast.

"I never signed up to fight you! " said Harry.

The smile playing around Professor Quirrell's lips grew wider.
"As a matter of fact, I did offer to share a few
suggestions regarding Miss Granger's first battles."

"You're not going to secretly help her some other way,
are you?" said Harry.

"Would I do that?" said Professor Quirrell.

"Yes," said Draco and Harry at the same time.

"I am wounded by your lack of trust. Well then, I promise not to
help General Granger in any way that the two of you don't know
about. And now I suggest that both of you be about your military
affairs. November approaches, and swiftly."

Draco saw the implications before the door had closed all the
way behind them on their way out of Professor Quirrell's
office.

Harry had once spoken dismissively of "people stuff".

And now that was Draco's only hope.

Let him not realize, let him not realize...

"We should just attack the Granger girl first and get her out of
our way," said Draco. "After we crush her, we can have our own
contest without any distractions."

"Now that doesn't really seem fair to her, does it?" said Harry
in a mild voice.

"What do you care?" said Draco. "She's your rival,
right?" Then, with just the right note of suspicion in his voice,
"Don't tell me you've started really liking her, after
being her rival all this time..."

"Founders forbid," said Harry. "What can I say, Draco? I merely
have a natural sense of justice. Granger does too, you know. She
has a very firm grasp on good and evil, and she's probably going to
attack evil first. Having a name like 'Malfoy' is just asking for
it, you know."

DAMN IT!

"Harry," said Draco, sounding wounded and maybe a little
superior, "don't you want to fight fairly against me?"

"You mean rather than attacking you after you've already lost
some of your forces beating Granger?" said Harry. "Oh, I don't
know. Maybe after I get bored with just winning I'll try that
'fair' thing."

"Maybe she'll attack you," Draco said. "You're
her rival."

"But I'm her friendly rival," Harry said with an evil
grin. "I bought her a nice birthday present and everything. You
wouldn't go around sabotaging your friendly rival like that."

"What about sabotaging your friend's chance at a fair
fight?" said Draco angrily. "I thought we were friends!"

"Let me rephrase that," said Harry. "Granger wouldn't
sabotage a friendly rival. But that's because she has the killing
intention of a bowl of wet grapes. You would. You
totally would. And guess what, so would I."

DAMN IT!

If it had been a play, there would have been dramatic music.

The hero, impeccably turned out in green-trimmed robes and
perfectly combed white-blonde hair, faced the villain.

The villain, leaning back in a simple wooden chair with her
buckteeth clearly visible and stray chestnut curls drifting over
her cheeks, faced the hero.

It was Wednesday, October 30th, and the first battle was coming
up on Sunday.

Draco was standing in General Granger's office, a room the size
of a small classroom. (Why each general's office was so
large, Draco wasn't quite sure. A chair and a desk would have
worked for him. He wasn't even clear on why the generals needed
offices at all, his soldiers knew where to find him. Unless
Professor Quirrell had deliberately arranged the huge offices for
them as a sign of status, in which case Draco was all for it.)

Granger sat on the room's single chair like a throne, all the
way on the other end of the office from where the door opened.
There was a long oblong table stretched across the middle of the
room between them, and four small circular tables scattered around
the corners, but only that one single chair, all the way at the
opposite end. The room had windows along one wall, and one beam of
sunlight touched the top of Granger's hair like a glowing
crown.

It would have been nice if Draco could have walked slowly
forward. But there was a table in the way, and Draco had to go
around it diagonally, and there was no good way to do that in a
dramatic and dignified fashion. Had that been deliberate? If it had
been his father, it surely would have been; but this was Granger,
so surely not.

There was nowhere for him to sit, and Granger hadn't stood up,
either.

Draco kept the outrage entirely off his face.

"Well, Mr. Draco Malfoy," Granger said once he stood before her,
"you requested an audience with me and I have been so gracious as
to grant it. What was your plea?"

Come with me to visit Malfoy Manor, my father and I would
like to show you some interesting spells.

"Your rival, Potter, came to me with an offer," said Draco,
putting a serious look on his face. "He doesn't mind losing to me,
but would be humiliated if you won. So he wants to join with me and
wipe you out immediately, not just in our first battle, all of
them. If I won't do that, Potter wants me to hold back or harass
you, while he launches an all-out attack on you as his first
move."

"Of course," said Draco smoothly. "I didn't think what he wanted
to do to you was fair."

"Why, that's very nice of you, Mr. Malfoy," said Granger. "I'm
sorry for how I spoke to you earlier. We should be friends. Can I
call you Drakey?"

Alarm bells started to sound in Draco's head, but there was a
chance she meant it...

"Of course," said Draco, "if I can call you Hermy."

Draco was pretty sure he saw her expression flicker.

"Anyway," Draco said, "I was thinking it would serve Potter
right if we both attacked him and wiped him out."

"But that wouldn't be fair to Mr. Potter, would it?" said
Granger.

"I think it'd be very fair," Draco said. "He was planning to do
it to you first."

Granger was giving him a stern look that could possibly have
intimidated him if he'd been a Hufflepuff instead of a Malfoy. "You
think I'm pretty stupid, don't you, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco smiled charmingly. "No, Miss Granger, but I thought I'd at
least check. So, what do you want?"

"Are you offering to bribe me?" said Granger.

"Sure," said Draco. "Can I just slip you a Galleon and have you
beat on Potter instead of me for the rest of the year?"

"Nope," said Granger, "but you can offer me ten Galleons and
have me attack both of you equally, instead of just you."

"Ten Galleons is a lot of money," Draco said cautiously.

"I didn't know the Malfoys were poor," said Granger.

Draco stared at Granger.

He was starting to get a strange feeling about this.

That particular reply didn't seem like it should have come from
this particular girl.

"Well," said Draco, "you don't get to be rich by wasting money,
you know."

"I don't know if you know what a dentist is, Mr. Malfoy, but my
parents are dentists and anything less than ten Galleons
isn't worth my time at all."

"Three Galleons," Draco said, more as a probe than anything
else.

"Nope," said Granger. "If you want an equal fight at all, I
don't believe that a Malfoy wants an equal fight less than he wants
ten Galleons."

Draco was starting to get a very strange feeling about
this.

"No," said Draco.

"No?" said Granger. "This is a limited time offer, Mr. Malfoy.
Are you sure you want to risk a whole year of being miserably
crushed by the Boy-Who-Lived? That would be pretty embarrassing for
the House of Malfoy, wouldn't it?"

It was a very persuasive argument, one that was hard to refuse,
but you didn't get to be rich by spending money when your heart
told you it was a setup.

"No," said Draco.

"See you on Sunday," said Granger.

Draco turned and walked out of the office without another
word.

That had been not right...

"Hermione," Harry said patiently, "we're supposed to be
plotting against each other. You could even betray me and it
wouldn't mean anything outside the battlefield."

Hermione shook her head. "It wouldn't be nice, Harry."

Harry sighed. "I don't think you're getting into the spirit of
this at all."

It wouldn't be nice. She'd actually said that. Hermione
didn't know whether to be insulted at what Harry thought of her, or
worried about whether she really did sound like that much
of a goody-two-shoes usually.

It was probably time to change the subject.

"Anyway, are you doing anything special for tomorrow?" said
Hermione. "It's -"

Her voice cut off abruptly as she realized.

"Yes, Hermione," Harry said a little tightly, "what day is
it?"

Interlude:

There was a time when October 31st had been called Halloween in
magical Britain.

Now it was Harry Potter Day.

Harry had turned down all the offers, even the one from Minister
Fudge which might have been good for future political favors and
which he really should have gritted his teeth and taken.
But to Harry, October 31st would always be The Dark Lord Killed My
Parents Day. There should have been a quiet, dignified memorial
service somewhere, and if there was one, he hadn't been
invited.

Hogwarts got the day off to celebrate. Even the Slytherins
didn't dare wear black outside their own dorm. There were special
events and special foods and the teachers looked the other way if
anyone ran through the hallways. It was the tenth anniversary,
after all.

Harry spent the day in his trunk so as not to spoil it for
anyone else, eating snack bars in place of meals, reading some of
his sadder science fiction books (no fantasy), and writing a letter
to Mum and Dad that was much longer than the ones he usually
sent.